


Splendor

by Burnin4u



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Characters being creepy, Child Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Dark, Disturbing Themes, Dubious Consent, Human Trafficking, I am a creep for writing this, M/M, New to tagging so don't shoot me, Physical Abuse, Prostitution, Rape/Non-con Elements, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex, Young Daryl Dixon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 09:45:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12010137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burnin4u/pseuds/Burnin4u
Summary: At 13, Daryl hasn't known much kindness. Abused by his father his whole life and then pimped by his older brother, he has only known the world as a cruel place full of predators waiting to devour the weak. But still, he tries to find his joy in small moments of splendor and survive.The story is going to be dark for a while , but there will be sun!





	1. 1772 Orchard St

**Author's Note:**

> First ever fic for TWD! I've had this fic on my mind for a while and finally decided to write it. I held off because, the subject matter is quite bleak, but I couldn't let the idea die, so here it is. Please leave a comment!

Daryl looked out of the window of Merle’s truck into the blue gloom of early evening. The houses around here were so nice, a sharp contrast to the perpetually filthy trailer he’d grown up in and the seedy motel he and his brother lived in now. He used to dream about living in a house like one of these, a house with a fridge full of food, a house where no one beat him to a bloody pulp for dropping a can of beer. But he was 13 now and nothing if not practical, and he knew that such a dream was far out of reach for the likes of him. Hell, they could barely make the weekly rent for the motel what with Merle smoking and drinking almost any money that came in. Far be it for Daryl to say anything about that, though.

“His name is Shane. He said somebody _referred_ him,”Merle explained, a bit of mocking mirth in his voice,”Ya hear that, Darlina? Yer fancy now! Ya got _references_!” He laughed at that.

“Fuck you,” Daryl replied quietly without shifting his gaze.

His brother just continued to laugh and Daryl felt grateful that he was in a good mood tonight.

The truck stopped at a blue and white house on Orchard Street. 1772. It was nice and unassuming, but Daryl felt dread settle in the pit of his stomach upon seeing it.

He hesitated getting out. New clients were the hardest since he didn’t know what to expect. He hoped this one would be easy. He took a deep breath and opened the truck door. Merle’s hand grabbed hold of his forearm in a bruising grip before he could slide out.

“Listen: Ya best behave yerself, ya hear? Last thing we need is ya scaring off business with yer bad attitude. Ya fuck this up and I’ll give ya an adjustment ya’ll never forget, ya hear me?”

Daryl didn’t respond at first and Merle gave him a violent shake. He nodded and the grip on his arm released. He closed the door behind him when he got out and headed up to the house.

He rang the doorbell and waited. After a moment he could hear footsteps on the other side of the door. When it opened, a man with dark hair and dark eyes stood on the other side of it. He smiled at Daryl and he could tell that it was not something he did often or easily.

“Hi Daryl, c’mon in,” he said, standing aside.

Daryl looked back for the truck, but Merle was gone, so he stepped inside. He’d be back when the man was finished.

There was a staircase to the right and down the hall, Daryl caught a glimpse of a dimly kitchen. There were paintings of landscapes on the wall and plants placed here and there.

“I’ve run ya a bath,” the man said, leading him up the stairs.

 Daryl followed him to a well-lit bathroom with beige tiling. The bathtub was spacious and filled with steaming water. He stood next to it waiting for instructions.

The man called Shane took Daryl’s face into his hands and stood looking at him for a long time with an unreadable expression. After a moment, he kissed the top of his head, a gesture that set off a trigger in Daryl’s mind. So he was one of _those_.

Daryl stood stock-still as the man began to undress him, staring at a point past his face, ignoring the benign smile the man was giving him. _It’ll be over soon enough_ , he told himself, _Jus’ let him get on with his stupid little ritual and it’ll be over_.

“G’on and get in,” Shane told him when he’d finished undressing him.

The water was warm and welcoming. Daryl felt himself melt into it. He would have relaxed completely if not for the hands that were now on him. They were gentle, but they were foreign to him and rendered him stiff again. He knew gentle touches like this were almost always a precursor to more painful ones so he did not hold his breath.

The man stared at him as he began to wash him with a washcloth. Daryl stared ahead at the tiled wall, avoiding his gaze.

“Ya don’t talk much, do ya?” Shane asked, his tone good-natured.

Daryl shook his head.

“I can if ya want me to, though,”he added, remembering Merle’s threat.”

“S’ok. I won’t force ya,”the man replied.

_Like hell you won’t_ , Daryl thought, thinking of what would happen after this bath.

If he was honest with himself, though, he supposed this was not terrible. Almost…pleasurable. He’d had much worse and such gentleness was few and far between even if it was proceeded with violence.

Fingertips brushed the scars on his back. There hadn’t been any new ones in a while since Merle preferred his fists to the belt.

“Who did this to ya?” the man asked. Daryl could not tell if the tone was just curiosity or genuine concern. He supposed it didn’t matter either way.

Daryl shrugged. The fingertips lingered a moment before being replaced with the washcloth. The man did not press for an answer.

After Shane finished washing his hair, he lifted him out of the tub and stood him on the mat just outside it. He used a fluffy blue towel to dry him and then wrapped it around his waist when he was done. Daryl could feel his heart beating in his throat as Shane took his wrist and led him out of the bathroom and down the hall.

_He’s just a man_ , he told himself in an attempt to calm down, _There ain’t much he can do to ya that ain’t already been done._

The room he was led to was a bit of a shock to him. It was a kid’s room. A boy’s room. Painted blue. Model airplanes, toy cars and trucks, a train set, posters of kid show characters. The bed’s comforter was covered in characters from a popular Saturday morning action cartoon, Stellarnauts. Daryl himself watched it sometimes when Merle was out.

And then, the kicker. A picture on the night table. Shane on the left, a brown-haired woman on the right, and a boy not much younger than Daryl in the middle. All smiling. He couldn’t help but note the similarities between him and this boy.

“This yer boy?”he heard himself say, gesturing to the picture. He knew he’d made a mistake when Shane blinked at him slowly and did not respond.

_Daryl, you idiot! Keep yer fuckin’ mouth shut!_

Shane let go of his wrist, pulled the chair from a desk facing the window closer to the bed, and sat with a sigh.

“Yeah. Stepson. Carl. His mom and I are…separated right now and they’re living with her parents in Atlanta.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Shane shrugged and smiled.

“’S Ok. Why don’t ya put those on and get into bed? Guessed at the size, but they should fit.”

Daryl looked where he was gesturing. On the bed there was a set of blue plaid pajamas. He suspected if he checked the closet, he would find an identical pair in a smaller size. He removed the towel and put them on. Climbing between the sheets, he tried to turn off his mind.

“Close yer eyes,” Shane said softly,”Ya can sleep if ya want.”

Daryl closed his eyes and listened, feeling confused. He could hear the man move his chair closer to the bed. He began to stroke Daryl’s hair gently. Almost…lovingly. He placed a kiss on his cheek and another on the top of his head. For a moment, Daryl felt bad for him. Maybe he just missed his son?

Then he heard the unmistakable sound of an unbuckling belt and froze. After several minutes, Daryl determined that the man was pleasuring himself and any sympathy he had felt for him went away.

 

**Rowe’s Motor Inn**

As Daryl climbed back into Merle’s truck, he couldn’t pinpoint why he felt so disturbed about what had happened inside 1772 Orchard Street. He’d had so many horrible things done to him and this Shane guy had barely touched him. He’d even told Daryl he could sleep if he wanted to!

He supposed it was the nagging feeling that this night had been something of a dry run for Shane in preparation for something potentially worse for the boy in the picture. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t his problem, but the nagging feeling wouldn’t go away.

He passed the envelope of cash the man gave him to Merle who inspected it. Daryl turned away to stare out of the window, not caring to know how much he had been sold for.

They drove in silence for a while before Merle turned to him.

“So how was it?”

Daryl shrugged. He knew Merle was not asking about his wellbeing, rather checking that Daryl had behaved himself.

“Tha fuck ya mean ‘ya don’t know’? Ya think he’ll ask fer ya again?”

Daryl hoped not, but he shrugged. A cuff to the back of the head told him that his silence had annoyed Merle too much.

“Lil’ shit.”

They stopped outside a convenience store and Merle got out and went inside. Daryl leaned his head against the window, feeling tired and hungry. The clock said 9:13.

Merle returned to the car with a case of cheap beer and a bag, both of which he handed off to Daryl. The bag contained several cans of spaghettios (which would be tonight and tomorrow’s dinner) and a pack of condoms.

Back in the motel room, Merle disappeared into the bathroom while Daryl poured one of the cans of Spaghettios into a plastic takeout container that functioned as a bowl and stuck that into the microwave to heat.

As he hunted for a spoon, the bathroom door opened and Merle exited. His older brother opened the case of beer, took out two of them and headed for the door.

“I’ll be back later. Anybody comes to the door, turn off the tv and don’t open it.”

“Where ya goin’?” Daryl asked. He already knew the answer, though. _To find a fix_.

“Never you mind where the fuck I’m goin’! Jus’ don’t open the goddamn door.”

Daryl watched his brother go with frustration. If he kept blowing their money on crystal, they wouldn’t make rent. Of course, there wasn’t much he could do about that, so he took his dinner, sat down on the edge of the bed, and turned on the tv.

After an hour of watching sitcoms, he snuck one of the beers from the case. He reasoned that Merle wouldn’t remember how many there’d been by the time he reached the bottom of it.

Around midnight, someone did knock at the door and Daryl did as he had been instructed, sitting silently as the rapping intensified and the stranger on the other side called angrily for Merle to open the fucking door and pay him his money. After a while, the person went away and Daryl turned the tv back on, watching one more show before climbing between the sheets to sleep.


	2. Al’s Truck Stop off I-75

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A snapshot of a typical day in Daryl's life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some sex in this chapter. General bleakness(as I warned about previously).

Daryl woke up to Merle shaking his shoulder. He smelled cigarette smoke and beer. After a moment of lamenting lost sleep, he sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Clock said 4:05am. It was still dark out. The still-made left side of the bed told him that his brother had not slept there last night.

“C’mon, get yer ass up and get dressed,”Merle said,”Got places to be.” He was leaning against the wall across from the bed, a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other one.

“Where we goin’?”Daryl asked as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and searched the floor for his jeans.

“Work.”

“Merle, somebody came by last-,” Daryl started.

“Worry about that later! Get dressed, I said!” his brother snapped impatiently. Daryl rushed to obey, knowing annoying Merle too much would not bode well for him.

When he was dressed, they went out to the truck and headed out. Daryl peered out at the road, bleary-eyed, tired, and hungry. Today would be a long day. There were so many long days lately.

“Somebody came to the door last night bitchin’ about money ya owe ‘em,” he said. That sort of thing happened often. Sometimes, they ended up moving to a different motel, others the knocking just stopped and they went on as usual.

“Ya let me worry about that,” Merle told him gruffly.

That shut Daryl up, but didn’t stop him from worrying. If something happened to Merle, he’d have to go back to their father and he definitely didn’t want that. Anything was better than that.

After a while of driving, Merle pulled into Al’s Truck Stop, just off I-75. There was a diner and a place for truck drivers to take a rest. This was a familiar place, a place to earn some easy money. Still, it didn’t make Daryl dread it any less.

Merle shut off the truck and looked at his younger brother expectantly.

“Somebody asks ya how old ya are, watcha gon’ say?” he asked.

“How old ya want me to be?” Daryl replied quietly.

“How much?”

“30 for a blow, 60 fer a fuck, weird shit’s extra.”

“And if he looks like a cop?”

“He’s prob’ly a cop.”

Merle handed him the pack of condoms he’d bought last night and the rest of a can of beer that he downed quickly before climbing out of the truck and heading toward the diner.

The smell of food made Daryl’s stomach ache with hunger. Light spilled out into the darkness from the diner’s front windows. He peered inside and could easily spot who the truckers were. Well-worn jackets and hats, road weary expressions.

He walked toward the rows of trucks. He found no takers in the first 2 he approached, but third time was the charm.

“Ya lookin’ fer some company?” he asked the driver.

The man looked at him warily.

“Depends. How much?”

“30 for a blow, 60 fer a fuck, weird shit’s extra.”

The man considered this.

“Been a long time since I had a good fuck. That you?”

Daryl smiled.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he replied.

“Get in.”

The man pushed the passenger’s seat forward to allow him to climb into the sleeper. He sat down on the mattress there, opened the pack of condoms and took the first of 12 out of it. He stripped off his jeans and shirt, before unbuckling the man’s pants and taking him into his hand.

He stroked him, smiling up at him, the man’s hand grabbing a handful of his hair. He blocked out the man’s vocalizations of his pleasure and continued working him until he was reasonably hard. Then he tore open the condom wrapper with his teeth and slid the condom onto the man before lying back on the mattress a bit to stretch himself. He coated his fingers in spit and inserted them inside. The man stood watching him do this with a slightly stupid expression on his face, stroking himself.

“C’mon, baby, I’m ready,” he said quietly when he was finished and the man covered him. He stared at a place past the man’s face the entire time it was going on. The man called him sweetheart, baby, and darlin’ (which was too close to what his brother called him and made him uncomfortable). He pinched his nipples too hard, but Daryl did not complain. The feeling of foreign hands on him made his skin crawl as it always did.

When he was finished, the man did not speak to him, just handed him the money once he was dressed and let him out of the truck. He headed to the bathroom to clean himself up so he could start looking for the next trick.

 After the first couple, he felt something turn off inside him. He could hear himself talking, feel the corners of his lips turn up in that small, superficial smile, see himself climbing in and out of the cabs of trucks, but it was like watching someone else. The only thing he could remember was climbing out of the cabs with one less condom and more money in his pocket.

Exhausted, Daryl walked purposefully toward the bathroom after a particularly difficult trick.  There were 5 condoms left. He cleaned himself up mechanically one last time and splashed water on his face. Just as he was about to leave, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. He brushed his brown hair out of his face. He looked as tired as he felt. He smiled experimentally. There. That was what his johns would want to see. That was what Merle would want to see.

He left the bathroom and headed back to his brother’s pick-up. Inside, Merle was smoking and listening to the country music station. Daryl handed him the money, hoping he’d be satisfied and not make him go back out. He held his breath as his brother counted.

Daryl was relieved when he saw Merle nod approvingly.

“Ya did good, baby brother,”his brother said, a hint of joy in his voice. He reached over and ruffled Daryl’s hair like he used to when he was little. Daryl swatted his hand away and feigned annoyance even though he was happy that he’d managed to please his older brother for once.

9:37am. They stopped at a gas station to fill up and Merle bought him 2 sausage and egg breakfast sandwiches that he ate ravenously. They continued on their way until Merle stopped at a rundown shack of a house in a shitty part of town.

“Stay here. I’ll be back.”

Daryl watched his brother head up to the house and then inside before laying his head back and closing his eyes. All he wanted was to be back in their crappy motel room, between the sheets. He was almost asleep when Merle returned, a non-descript package wrapped in brown paper in his hand. Daryl didn’t dare ask about it, even as it was stowed under the passenger seat.

There were more stops like this and Daryl mostly slept through them until Merle decided to crank up the radio. And if that wasn’t annoying enough, he started to sing along off-key. Daryl shot him a murderous look that made his brother chuckle.

“What? Ya don’t like my singin’?” he asked jokingly.

“Shut up! Yer givin’ me a goddamn headache,” Daryl replied irritably. He had to admit that it was funny when Merle was silly like this, though and he had to suppress a smile.

“Yer hurtin’ my feelin’s, Darlina!”

The nickname conjured a memory from earlier of the trucker calling him darlin’ while squeezing his nipples too hard. It made him sick and he had to look away.

He suddenly wanted to be very far away from here. He didn’t know where though. He had never set foot out of Georgia and he knew so little about places outside it that his imagination about them was limited.

“What’s wrong?” Merle asked, noticing the change in his demeanor.

Daryl shook his head and closed his eyes again.

“Nothin’. Jus’ tired.”


	3. Hitoc National Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl spends the day away from the motel connecting with nature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a short chapter, but I wanted to post it standalone since the next one is...heavy.

Daryl felt the most at home in nature. This was where he retreated when things were unbearable out in the world. Here, he could hunt, he could fish, he could be alone with his thoughts. Here, he knew how to survive. The predators in here were easy to understand, their motives simplistic, black and white. It was out there that was…gray.

He had gotten lost in the woods near their home when he was younger and after that Merle had taught him how to navigate, how to see and find things that others could not. Now he read places like this better than he could any book.

This afternoon, he was out quite far, farther than he’d ever been. He walked along until the forest became lusher, greener. That told him water would probably be nearby. Sun peeked out from the treetops, kissing the bare skin of his shoulders and arms. It was a hot day and the earth steamed, the rich smell of it made Daryl want to lay in it and feel it beneath him.

The swarms of insects were growing heavier. He could hear the soft rush of water now and his steps quickened toward it.

The edge of a creek. Daryl climbed down to it along the rocks. He put his pack and his crossbow down on a rock and stripped off his clothes before wading into the cool water. It was amazing and the perfect remedy for such a hot day!

He swam under the blue sky, happy that Merle had let him go on this little trip. After all, he did not belong cooped up in a motel room. His was a wild heart and this was where he belonged.

After a while of swimming, Daryl noticed it was growing darker. He decided that he had better start heading back. Hitoc was 5 miles from the motel and Merle would expect him back by nightfall. He swam to shore, climbed out, and set about the task of redressing himself.

He started back the way he’d come. He’d been walking about 20 minutes when he noticed the blood on the ground, some on plant leaves and tree trunks. Dark colored and heavy, the sign of a fatal shot. Daryl knelt to examine it. Maybe an hour or 2 old. He searched the ground. There were some hoof prints. Deer, buck. The prints were still pretty heavy here, meaning it had still been pretty strong at this point and running fast.

Daryl followed the tracks and blood for a long time. It was getting darker and he knew he should start back, but his curiosity got the better of him. At a point, he noticed the tracks begin to indicate that the animal was slowing. The blood was fresher. He could tell it had fallen and gotten back up, stumbling on. He stood listening. Surely, whoever had shot it couldn’t be far behind. He couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, so he walked on.

Then he spotted it, lying among the leaves, its white belly clearly visible. He approached it carefully. A buck as he had thought, 6 pointer. It was shot through its side, but was still breathing, blinking up at him slowly.

Daryl knelt next to it, took the knife from his boot. It seemed wrong to deny whoever had shot it their killing blow, but it was more wrong to let the animal suffer. He patted its flank apologetically, pressed the blade to its throat and cut it open, warm blood spurting over his fingers.

He knelt there for a long time, the silence almost spiritual, waiting for the hunter. The light was dying and no one came. It would take some time and Merle would kill him for being so late, but he set about the task of field dressing the buck anyway. To let all that meat go to waste from taint would be a sacrilege.


	4. 1201 Beechwood Rd.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl visits a difficult customer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy...What to say about this chapter. It was a hard one to write.I would not recommend reading it if you are triggered by sexual abuse. Consent in this chapter is so dubious that it is pretty much non-existent. This i one of the bleakest things I've ever written, so be warned. *Updated to add a missing piece of the story

Negan was easily one of Daryl’s most difficult regulars, if not the most. With others, it was easy to float away, to pretend he was somewhere else. But Negan demanded to be entertained, demanded active participation, demanded affirmations of willingness. He had rules he demanded be followed. And then there was that stupid song, _Easy Street_ , that he played almost the entire time, every time. He paid well though, and Merle expected him to be kept happy. Daryl had been punished enough times for misbehaving that he had stopped tempting that particular fate and mostly complied with whatever the man ordered him to do.

Sitting here in the dim light of this bedroom, Daryl enjoyed the silence before Negan would make his presence known. As always, when he had arrived, the blonde woman in the black dress had led him up to the bedroom with the spacious bed clothed in dark silk sheets to wait. She never spoke to him, but he guessed that maybe she was Negan’s wife or girlfriend. If she felt anything about the man’s… predilections, her placid expression did not give it away.

When he heard the footsteps, the safety of Merle’s truck and the drive back to the motel suddenly seemed so far away. But he would survive this night as he had survived all the other ones. Merle would pick him up and they would get burgers and fries like he’d promised and then Daryl would watch sitcoms about happy families until he fell asleep. Yes. That was a pleasant thought he could focus on to get him through this.

He flinched slightly when the door opened. He looked at his hands in his lap. A dark chuckle cut across the room like a knife.

“Daryl! Just.Look.At.You. Sitting there like a present just waiting to be unwrapped! And unwrap you, I shall,”Negan said cheerfully.

He approached the bed where Daryl sat at the edge trying to stop his hands from trembling. He knelt down in front of Daryl and took his chin in one of his large hands. He kissed him roughly and Daryl compliantly allowed him entry. After a moment, he pulled back and studied Daryl’s face.

“You miss me?” he asked quietly.

Daryl nodded, glancing up at the man. He detected a narrowing of his eyes, the smile that was on his lips waning  and realized what he had done wrong.

 _You speak when you are spoken to_ , the man had ordered him on that first night so long ago. Daryl knew how important it was to remember Negan’s rules. He was fairly lenient, but he was not a pleasant man once his mood was ruined.

“Yes,”he said quickly, feeling relieved when the smile on the man’s face widened again.

“That’s good, because I missed you too,”the man replied,” Why don’t you go ahead and take off those clothes so we can start getting _reacquainted_?”

“Yessir.”

Daryl stood and obeyed the order, pulling his shirt off over his head and sliding his jeans down his legs. How many times had he done that today? He didn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to remember.

Once he was naked, Negan sat on the bed and pulled him into his lap.

“Getting big, aren’t you? In more ways than one, I see! Man, that is one impressive tool you got there!” A hand roamed down between Daryls legs to grip his length.

As the man stroked him, Daryl tried to go to that pleasant future place. He would get extra pickles on his burger. They were his favorite. If he thought hard, he could almost taste the deliciously salty fries. And the Marvelous Martins was on tonight, one of his favorite sitcoms about a family of inventors who came up with crazy(and usually ill-fated) inventions to solve problems. He smiled involuntarily when he thought about the stupid hijinks they got into, almost able to hear the laugh track in the background.

“Like that do you?” an amused voice spoke into his ear, yanking him out of his reverie. Negan was looking at him, that shit-eating grin plastered on his face. He had seen Daryl smile and mistaken it for pleasure, making him want to throw up.

“Yes,” he replied reluctantly. A dark chuckle and to his relief, the hand came to rest on his inner thigh, ceasing it’s movement.

“Daryl, I am so glad you’re here. I have been dealing with fuckheads and assholes all day long and I am looking forward to a little rest and relaxation! So I want you to do something for me.”

 _If ya want me to suck yer fuckin’ cock, jus’ say it,_ Daryl thought with annoyance.

“I want you to tell me a lil’ story! Story time with Big Daddy Negan! How ‘bout that?” The glee in his voice made Daryl groan internally.

Not this shit again. He hated this particular game more than almost all of Negan’s others.

“What kinda story?”he asked, the tiredness he had been feeling lately coming on strong.

Negan considered this a moment.

“Hm. I want something that’ll get me where I need to be. So how about you tell me about your first time?”

The man unbuckled his belt, freeing himself from the confines of his jeans, stroking himself as he listened.

His first time. Oh, he remembered that. He would remember it until the day he died. And if there was an afterlife, maybe even then too.

It had been 3 weeks after Merle had taken him from their father’s home after a beating that had almost killed him and one week after his twelfth birthday. They had been staying at the Blue Moon Motel in a part of town even the cops avoided. Merle had been perpetually high on crystal and burning through all their money.

His brother had explained to him firmly that he needed to start earn his keep, had tried to help him understand what was expected of him, what would be done to him, and what would happen to him if he did not obey. Nothing could have prepared him for what happened though.

It had been a Saturday afternoon and Justice Knights, one of the final cartoons before the evening news, had been on. The motel door had opened and a man had peered inside, Merle standing behind him. The man had looked at him, saying nothing and then the door had closed. He had heard them talking outside the door for a while, but could not hear what they were saying.

When the door opened again, both men came inside. Merle had quietly explained that it was time to start earning his keep, that he was to do what the man told him, and that he would be waiting outside. Then he had stepped out, leaving Daryl alone with the stranger.

There had been so many men since then. _So many_. But this particular man’s face was burned so firmly into his memory that he could draw it in great detail if he was asked to do so. He remembered the scent of his aftershave, ironically the same brand his father used. He remembered the words of adoration the man had whispered to him as he had undressed him, how cold the ring on the man’s right hand had felt against his skin, how gentle his hands had been at first. And then how brutally he had violated him.

He had screamed and screamed for Merle and he hadn’t come. He hadn’t come like all those times their father had hurt him. And somehow that had been the worst part, another twist of betrayal from someone who he had always loved unconditionally. Who he still loved unconditionally. Who he would always love unconditionally.

Then the stranger had gone and Merle had come back and, in a rare display of affection, had held him. And Daryl had forgiven him like he always did. They had, after all, needed the money.

When he told all this to Negan, he felt so removed from it, like it truly was just a story, like it had happened to some other boy.

“Wow, kid…that is some fucked up shit! Jesus! But hey, I guess I’m a little fucked up too. Hell, who isn’t?!”

Negan lifted him off his lap and went to the stereo on the dresser to turn on that dreaded music. He stripped off his clothes and sat back on the bed with his legs slightly open.

Daryl knelt between them, not needing to be told what to do. He tried to go back to that pleasant future, but it was difficult with the man’s cock shoved so far down his throat that tears slid down his face and with him saying how pretty he looked like that.

That did not last long before he was dragged onto the bed. This was usually the easy part, but not with Negan. The fingers inside him were not for simple preparation. No, this was yet another torture device designed to keep him from disassociating.

He heard himself gasp when the fingers pressed in just the right place and hated himself when the smile of realization appeared on Negan’s face.

“Oh! So that’s where you live, huh?!” the man said quietly, kissing him roughly.

Daryl closed his eyes involuntarily, needing to be away from here, to be anywhere but here. Merle’s truck. The sun shining down and the road stretched out before them. Lynyrd Skynrd on the radio. His brother’s shitty singing. A hand ruffling his hair playfully.

“Oh no you don’t! Don’t you dare skip out on me! Are you not enjoying yourself?”

Negan had stopped his ministrations, the smile was gone now, and he sounded annoyed. Daryl knew he’d fucked up.

“I am!” he said, the only correct answer here.

“Really, because it doesn’t seem like you are enjoying yourself. If you’re not in the mood, I can call your brother and have him come pick you up early. I wouldn’t want to force you to do anything you don’t want to do! What kind of man would that make me?” He feigned indignation and while his tone was amicable, the threat was obvious. They both knew what would happen to Daryl if Merle found out he’d misbehaved.

Daryl shook his head, desperate.

“No! I want to! I am-I am enjoying myself.” He leaned forward and kissed Negan of his own volition, hoping it would be enough to assuage him and hating himself all over again for being so weak.

The grin was back and Daryl sighed with relief.

“That’s good to know. I am glad to hear that. Now gimme a smile, princess, ‘cause we’re about to have a lot of fun,” the man said as he reached for the lubricant on the night table.

Daryl did as he was told and he felt a part of him die. The song started again for the twelfth time.

**Rowe's Motor Inn**

When he climbed back into Merle's truck, he felt like a part of him was still back in that bedroom with that awful song still blaring. He handed his brother the money and hugged himself, curling in on himself against the truck door, avoiding the puzzled gaze.

They stopped at the Jane's Burger's drive through. Daryl gave Merle his order, but he found that his hunger was gone.  _He_ was gone. 

"What's wrong with ya?" Merle asked as they started the drive back to the motel.

Daryl shook his head. Wouldn't do any good to complain.

"He hurt ya?"

Had he? Not physically. He didn't have a scratch on him. But he had no way to explain how deeply and irreparably he'd been hurt. How did he explain that pieces of him kept falling away in the bedrooms of strangers and and in motel rooms and in the trucks and cars of strange men. Instead, he shook his head and Merle dropped it.

Back in the motel room, he locked himself in the bathroom. He turned on the shower. However when he went to take off his clothes he found that he just couldn't. Not again tonight. He got in fully clothed and just sat on the floor under the spray of water and wept silently.

He must have stayed there too long, because the next thing he remembered was Merle banging on the door.

"The hell ya doin' in there? Yer food's getting cold!Daryl!"

Daryl ignored this and closed his eyes, blocking out the sound of the insistent banging. He went somewhere else, someplace brighter. He went back to the forest.


	5. Great Bear National Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl and Merle go on a camping trip out of town to avoid Merle's "debt collectors".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much in the way of warnings for this chapter. Mostly just Daryl bonding with his older brother, but I wouldn't call it fluffy. They're kind of a effed up family and that peeks through sometimes, but this chapter definitely isn't as depressing as the last one(or the next one).

Daryl had been so happy when Merle had announced that they were going out of town on a little camping trip he could have hugged him. Of course he didn’t, for fear of getting knocked into next week. He suspected that the reasoning behind the trip had more to do with the increasing amount visits to the motel from strangers demanding money from Merle than pleasure, but it was great nonetheless.

They had stopped at the gas station to fill up and buy a couple cases of beer, smokes, and breakfast before setting out on the road early in the morning, the sky before them pink with the rising sun. “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynyrd had come on the radio and they’d sang together loudly with the windows rolled down and Daryl’s heart had been glad.

They had reached Great Bear by early afternoon. They found a place to set up camp and had set out after. They’d swam and fished in a creek nearby.

Now they were playing a game. Daryl had been shocked when he’d asked and Merle had agreed. It was a silly thing and they hadn’t played since he had been young. A simple game of hide and seek, child’s play. But out here and with Merle, there was something exciting about it. It was exciting to be the hunted for once instead of the hunter.

Merle had given him a head start and he had made it quite far out. He listened to the sounds of the forest, listening for footsteps, crushing leaves, a broken branch. He tried to be careful not to leave traces of himself. He walked softly, avoided touching tree trunks, trying to leave as much undisturbed as possible and not give his brother enough to track him so easily.

A rustling of leaves almost made him jump out of his skin and he turned to see it was only a squirrel scrambling up a tree.

He laughed silently to himself.

_Look at ya. Jumping at shadows._

 However, before he could keep going, an arm wrapped around his neck. He almost pissed himself.

“Yer dead, Darlina,”Merle whispered in his ear, a hint of a smile in his voice.

The grip loosened and he turned to face his brother in disbelief. Merle laughed.

“How’d ya find me?” Daryl asked.

“I know the terrain and I know how ya move. Plus, ya ain’t as quiet as ya think ya are.”

They started back toward camp. It was getting dark now.

“How’re ya so quiet, Merle?”

“’S’perience. Gotta keep quiet to avoid drawin’ enemy fire and to sneak up on ‘em.”

Merle rarely alluded to his military service. He’d joined at 18 to get away from their father and had spent 3 years fighting in “the war” in some foreign country. Merle didn’t talk much about it and Daryl didn’t ask. His service was a bit of a sore spot on account that it had ended badly with him court-martialled and sent to prison.

Daryl took this as a sign that he was allowed to inquire further. After they’d walked a ways, he finally decided it was safe to ask his question. Merle seemed to be in a good mood.

“What was it like fightin’ in the war?”

“Dangerous, what with the gettin’ shot at all the time. Fucked up. Fun as hell sometimes. Met some of the best and worst people in my whole life.”

“Ya ever see anybody die?”

“Yep. People shot. Kids, women. Blown apart by IEDs. It ain’t nothin’ like the movies. Ain’t nothin’ cool about watchin’ yer friends die.”

This fascinated Daryl. He had always thought about his brother as a badass, but somehow this conversation and thinking of him soldier had expanded his mythos.

Daryl didn’t think he should ask what he wanted to ask. He had thought to ask before and had always backed off it. But curiosity was burning him up and after a moment of running through scenarios of Merle’s potential response, he decided to do it anyway.

“Ya ever kill anybody?”

He’d asked the question quietly and the creature sounds of approaching night were growing louder, so when Merle did not respond, he assumed he hadn’t heard him. They continued in silence. They were nearly back to camp when Merle turned to look at him, his expression blank.

“Ya still want the answer to yer question?”

Did he? He wasn’t sure. He suspected that once Merle said it something between them would change, but he wasn’t sure what. He nodded anyway.

“I have. When I had to. I always thought it would be harder to do, but it wasn’t. Had a lotta rage. Still got some now.”

Daryl had expected as much. He had seen Merle hurt people before and he sometimes found himself on the wrong end of his fists, but thinking of his brother killing someone somehow made him feel…unsettled.

They were arrived back at their makeshift camp. Merle set about the task of lighting their fire. When he was done, they cooked the fish they’d caught and opened one of the cases of beer.

 “It scare ya, what I told ya?” Merle asked after a while.

It had. A little. Daryl shook his head.  Merle moved to sit beside him.

“This world…is a hard place, baby brother. Maybe havin’ that mean ol’ sonuva bitch fer a daddy prepared us better than most, but it is still a hard, hard place. I’ve seen and done things that make me feel like I ain’t fit to be livin’ out here with _civilized_ people and maybe I ain’t, but I always done what I had to do and that’s why I’m still alive.”

Daryl supposed he could understand this. If it was between himself and someone else he would choose himself too. And he knew all too well how hard the world was, how cruel people were. He wondered if he too would become so filled with rage that he would be able to do the things his brother did with ease.

They sat staring into the fire for a long time, eating and drinking. It was pleasant. He wondered how long they would stay here. He didn’t want to go back to that motel room. He didn’t want to go back to Al’s Truck Stop. He didn’t want to go back to Shane, or Negan, or Joe, or any of the regulars who bought him to live out their sick fantasies.

“Merle?” He said, tears burning in his eyes.

“Huh?”

“Let’s not go back.”

“What ya talkin’ about?”

“Let’s not go back. Let’s go somewhere else!”

Merle looked at him funny.

“Go where?”

Daryl didn’t know, really. The fuck away from here. What were other places like? Disneyworld was in Florida, but he couldn’t imagine Merle would like that. Hollywood was in California and they could see the place where they filmed the Marvelous Martins, but that was really far away.

“Ya’ve been places, Merle. What’s yer favorite place?”

Merle thought on this for a while.

“Alaska.”

“Alaska? What were ya doin’ in Alaska?”Daryl asked, laughing a little, finding the answer strange.

“After I got out a prison after the whole army shit, army buddy o’mine got me a job on an oil rig. Worked there for a year and came home.” He reached for another beer and cracked it open.

Daryl had never known this. Merle had been in and out of his life at intervals. Sometimes he’d disappeared for months at a time without so much as a phone call. Whenever he had asked his father where he was, he’d simply answered gruffly “Prob’ly prison”. Whenever he’d shown up again, Daryl had always been so overjoyed to have him back that he didn’t ask too many questions.

“An oil rig?! What was that like?”

“I liked it. Hard work, but the pay was decent. Cold as hell, but it was beautiful out there in the middle of the ocean. Bluest water ya ever did see. First time I ever saw a whale fer real. Plenty o’ huntin’ and fishin’ to do up there.”

“Why’d ya leave and come back here?”

_Why would anybody come back here?!_

Merle snorted.

“I don’t play well with others. I loved it though.”

Translation: He got in a fight and got fired.

“Let’s go then! Let’s go to Alaska!”

Merle laughed, but Daryl was serious. They could pack their things into the truck and drive it as far as it would take them. Maybe then he would be able to feel something again. Maybe he could be inside his body again and not feel ruined. Maybe then he would be able to forget his pain and anger and not turn out like Merle had.

“Yer crazy,” Merle said, downing the rest of his beer and reaching for another one.

Daryl clutched at his brother’s arm, desperate to make him understand.

“Please, Merle, let’s just go,” he said again, his voice cracking.

His older brother looked concerned. Daryl barely noticed that the tears had fell from his eyes. He repeated his plea in a whisper. Merle reached out his hand and Daryl flinched slightly, expecting to be hit, but the hand just wiped the tears away from his cheeks.

“Ok, Darlina. We’ll save up and go. We’ll see where we’re at in few months or so, ok?” his brother said softly.

Daryl nodded. He knew it was a lie, but it was nice to have something to hope for.


	6. Sanctuary Factory, Sub-basement 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl is sent to assist in a deflowering. He tries hard to make it better than his own was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another "Oh boy" chapter. Lotta warnings. There is sex between 2 underage people in this chapter and the consent is dubious as fuck. Also be warned about the child sexual abuse, pedophillic themes, and mention of child trafficking. Please do not read if these are triggers for you. This is a pretty graphic chapter. This is not a happy chapter. It was difficult to write, but I did anyway, so here it is.
> 
> *Sure everyone can guess who is the owns the factory building.

They always came in the back of the factory. It was a huge, daunting, grey building. Although he could hear the pumping and humming of machines, Daryl did not know what they manufactured on the main floors of the factory, but he knew what they did in one of the sub-basements: misery.

This was a place where they made what Merle called “Kiddy Flicks”. His brother sent him here very rarely, because even he admitted it was a horrifying place, but the proprietor here sometimes showed him a price that was enticing enough. The first time Merle had ever brought him here, they’d just taken pictures of him naked, pictures that were now hidden someplace in the motel room. Merle used those to find him new regulars.

A stranger met him at the back door and led him to the elevator. The man used a key to access sub-basement 2. They did not speak on the way down and that was fine with Daryl. He was swimming in a creek with the bright blue sky above him.

When they got out of the elevator, he was jarred back to reality with sound of screaming and crying. It took everything in him to keep following the man instead of running back to the elevator in terror. The doors of some of the rooms were open, but Daryl stared straight ahead. He didn’t need to see glimpses of boys and girls having unspeakable things done to them. He would be in one of those rooms soon enough. The only way he could keep his legs moving forward was to remind himself that he was not like them and that he would be able to go home afterward and that if they hurt him too bad, Merle would make them pay.

Daryl was led to a room with white walls on the left and right and a gray painted back wall. A camera and lighting set up stood in front of the mattress on the floor where an Asian boy about his age knelt sobbing, his eyes red rimmed from crying. There were 4 men in the room. There was one behind the camera, adjusting things. Another holding a camera near the mattress. Another was standing off to the side, his arms folded, his expression annoyed. Daryl guessed he was probably the one who would direct them. And the third Daryl recognized as the proprietor of this operation. And one of Daryl’s regulars. People referred to him as The Governor or Gov.

He was a bad man the same way Negan was a bad man in that he didn’t seem like one at first. He seemed likeable and friendly. Until he wasn't. When he saw Daryl, he smiled, a smile that reached the eye not hidden by an eye patch.

“One of my favorites!” he said congenially. He came over and gave Daryl a surprisingly chaste kiss.

“Hello, Mister Governor, Sir,” he said quietly.

“Listen: We have a first timer here. He’s a little scared, so if you could talk to him a little bit and get him to stop crying, I’d be really grateful,” the man told him in a low, confidential tone.

“Yes, sir.”

He had been made to do this before and he hated it. It always felt like he was leading a lamb to slaughter.

“Great! Come and see me when you’re done here, ok?”

“Yes, sir.”

The man left and Daryl took off his clothes and approached the mattress. He sank down on it next to the Asian boy who looked at him suspiciously.

“Hi, I’m Daryl. What’s yer name?”

The boy sniffed miserably.

“G-Glenn,”he replied.

“Where ya from, Glenn?”

“Michigan…they took me,”he said, sobbing pitifully,”I want to go home.”

It was hard for him to think about this boy being snatched away from his home. He looked at the men in the room. They were all looking at him expectantly. He smiled sympathetically at the boy called Glenn.

“I know, but ya can’t right now and I’m sorry. Glenn, I’m gonna try to help ya as much as I can, but ya gotta listen to me and do what I say, ok?”

The boy nodded.

“Ya gotta stop cryin’. They don’t like that and if ya keep carryin’ on they’ll hurt ya.”

Daryl got up on his knees and reached over to dry the boy’s tears with his palm, surprised that he let him touch him at all. He waited patiently for the boy to stop sobbing.

“It’s gonna be ok. Ya just have to do what they say and ya’ll be ok.” This wasn’t true at all and the lie tasted like ashes in his mouth.

He wasn’t sure how to delicately approach the elephant in the room, so he just cut to the chase.

“Ya know what they want us to do?”

Glenn looked at him blankly for a moment as a blush formed on his cheeks. He nodded.

“They…want us to… _fuck_ ,”he said, saying the last word as if it was poison.

“Ya know about fuckin’?”Daryl asked him softly, moving closer, placing a hand on one of Glenn’s thighs.

The other boy shrugged, looking away.

“It’s not bad. It hurts a little at first, but it feels good later. Ya get used to it,” he explained. That wasn’t necessarily true all the time. Sometimes later it still hurt, but Daryl wanted to give him something to look forward to.

“Really?” Glenn asked him, the hopeful tone of his voice making Daryl both happy that he believed him and sad that he was lying so convincingly.

He nodded, smiling and hating himself.

“The sooner we start, the sooner it’ll be over and we can get outta here,” he told him,”Jus’ let me lead and do what I do, ok?”

A nod.

“Oh, and Glenn?”

“Huh?”

“What’s yer favorite thing?”

“Favorite thing?”

“Like, I like huntin’, and watching sitcoms, and listenin’ to the radio. Somethin’ that makes ya happy. What do ya like?”

Glenn considered this a moment.

“Playing in the snow with my sisters.”

Daryl smiled at this. That was right! There was lots of snow where this boy came from. It rarely snowed down here. He supposed that would be a nice thing to think of. Glenn smiled back at him and he knew he’d done his job well. Which made Daryl feel terrible.

“If ya get sad or it hurts, jus’ think about playin’ in the snow. And we can talk a little during if we whisper and ain’t too obvious about it,” he told him. He looked at the annoyed man and gave him a slight nod. The man gave the ok for the cameramen to start filming them.

He leaned closer and kissed Glenn, chastely at first, then slipped him some tongue the second time around. The other boy pulled back a bit, wide-eyed and blushing. Daryl laughed a little, kissing him again.

“Jus’ do what I do,” he whispered, their faces close, lips touching slightly. Glenn kissed him back experimentally. It wasn’t very good, but it would do.

The man told them to touch each other in a voice that held an accent Daryl could not place and they did as they had been ordered, Glenn still blushing bright red. He was momentarily distracted by the cameraman who was moving around them to get a closer look, so Daryl turned his face back to his.

“Ignore ‘em. Look at me. Pretend they ain’t there,”he said in a whisper, his lips barely moving.

And oh the way Glenn looked at him! Such trust that it rent his heart in two. He had trusted like that once.

_I’m so sorry. I’m leading ya right to the slaughter. They gon’ put the bolt right between yer eyes_ _and ya ain’t gon’ even see it comin’._

“Sit back a little,”he whispered.

Glenn did as he was instructed. A gasp was drawn from him as Daryl leaned between his legs took him into his mouth. The director ordered them to switch places after a while and Daryl felt more ashamed than he ever had at responding to that warm mouth on him, unable to stop moans from spilling from his mouth.

Glenn was looking up at him, questioning. _Am I doing it right?_ The eyes staring up at him asked.

“Oh, yeah,”he breathed in response.

That fire was pooling in his belly and he had to pull him off or he wouldn’t last. Besides, he was hard enough now to continue.

“Lie down,” he whispered to the other boy.

Daryl noticed the alarmed look on his face, as he moved between his legs, and smiled down at him before kissing him softly. It was a distraction to keep his mind off the finger he was inserting into him. The body below him tensed in obvious discomfort.

He pulled back a little.

“Ya have to relax or it’s gonna hurt worse,”he whispered.

The body relaxed again and Daryl continued his ministrations until he thought the other boy was prepared enough.

“This is gonna hurt a little…but I’ll go slow. Jus’ think about playin’ in the snow,ok?”

A slight nod.

Daryl tried to go slow. He wanted to make this as good as he could for Glenn, because it had been so terrible for him. He watched his face carefully for signs of discomfort and to the other boy’s credit, he did not cry. He just looked up at Daryl, that trusting yet frightened look still on his face. Daryl had to look away from it, because it was hard to get pleasure from this when he felt so guilty.

When the director ordered them to change positions, Glenn pliantly allowed himself to be positioned. There was a blank look on his face, his eyes unfocused, and Daryl knew he wasn’t here anymore. He was home in Michigan. Playing with his sisters in the snow. This allowed Daryl to go on less inhibited by his guilt.

After they were finished and the director was speaking to the cameramen quietly, Daryl and Glenn sat close together on the mattress. Daryl didn’t say anything, because he didn’t want to ruin whatever reverie the other boy was in. After a while, Glenn finally spoke.

“I want to go home,” he said softly.

_And I wanna go to Alaska._

Daryl couldn’t bear to look at him. He told himself differently, but he knew in his heart he was no different from the other kids here. There was no going home for any of them. They never truly left these rooms. But he knew that facing this truth was too harsh for a first-timer and hope was a powerful survival mechanism.

“Ya will. One day,” he replied.

“You think so?” Glenn asked, looking at him with that _look_ that made his heart so heavy.

He smiled and nodded anyway.

Such a beautiful, terrible lie.


	7. Ridgeview Motel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl and Merle move to a new motel and Daryl meets a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! So many things were happening, but I'd been saving all my writing ideas in snippets and finally decided to piece some of them together. Thanks for bearing with me. This story can be emotionally taxing, so this chapter is a little lighter. Hope you guys enjoy it!

Eventually, they moved to a new motel, as they always did, in the next county over. It was just off the highway and no less shitty than any of the others, but there seemed to be a few families living there with kids his own age. Daryl often saw the kids hanging out outside the motel, but he never spoke to any of them.

Then one afternoon while Merle was out, Daryl went outside the room to smoke. He was waiting for a regular who was coming by. A red-haired girl in a yellow tank top and very short shorts was roller skating alone in the parking lot.

Daryl leaned against the building to watch her.  He had seen her before. She lived in the room next door. He had seen her with a surly-looking red-haired woman he assumed was her mother and a little girl who was probably her sister. Sometimes, yelling and crying came from their side of the wall.

After a while, the girl noticed him. She skated over and observed him for a moment before speaking.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” he replied.

Her eyes were a light green.There was a healing bruise on her cheek. A floral-patterned Band-Aid adorned her right knee. 

“I’m Aileen,” she said.

“Daryl.”

“How old are you?”

“13.”

“I’m 12. I’ll be 13 in 4 months, though.”

“Hm.”

“Yer Daddy lets ya smoke?” she asked, gesturing toward the cigarette in his hand.

“M’Daddy ain’t here, but he prolly wouldn’t care if he was.”

Aileen nodded, tucking auburn hair behind her ear. She squinted in the sunlight.

“I saw him leavin’ earlier. He seemed kinda drunk.”

Daryl realized that she thought Merle was his father.

“That ain’t my Daddy. S’my brother. And he _was_ drunk.”

_And high_.

“Oh. I got a sister.”

“I seen her. That little girl yer always with?”

“Yeah, Katie. She’s 5. I always get stuck watchin’ her cause our mama works 3 jobs now.”

A few doors down, a man exited a room to the sound of an angry woman yelling in Spanish. Several items, including a stereo, came flying out of the room after him. Daryl and Aileen watched the scene unfold for several minutes until the man got into a car and drove out of the parking lot, leaving the stuff behind. When he was gone, Aileen skated a little closer to the pile left in his wake to examine it. She skated back to Daryl a minute later.

“Nothin’ worth takin’. Radio looks busted, just clothes and junk,” she reported.

“Hm.”

Daryl finished the cigarette and crushed the butt under his boot. He felt awkward. It was rare that he got to be around people his own age.  He wasn’t well practiced in small talk, but he wanted Aileen to like him. He was lonely and it had been a long time since he’d had any friends.

Daryl lit another cigarette.

“Can I try it?” Aileen asked.

“Sure. Prolly won’t like it though.”

He passed the cigarette to her. She took a puff and immediately broke into a coughing fit. She passed it back, a disgusted look on her face.

“Ugh. That’s terrible. Why’d ya wanna do that?”

“Told ya. Ya get used to it, though,” Daryl replied, feeling amused.

 The door to Aileen’s room opened. Her little sister came out and regarded him suspiciously.

“Who’s he?” she asked.

“Shut up and go back in the room,” Aileen told her sister in an annoyed voice.

The little girl, Katie, did not go back into the room. Instead, she plopped down on the ground near them, a pack of multicolored chalk in her hand. Daryl watched her drawing for a while, before Aileen spoke, bringing his attention back to her.

“So, what school do ya go to? I go to White Ridge Middle and I don’t think I ever seen ya there.”

“I used to go to Cold Creek Middle, but I guess I don’t really go nowhere now.”

Aileen looked at him strangely.

“Fer real? Yer brother don’t make ya go?”

Daryl shook his head. It had been a long time since he had been in school. He barely went even when he lived with Daddy. It seemed like such a long time ago. He couldn’t imagine going back now, sitting at a desk, having lunch in the cafeteria, doing homework. That part of his life seemed…over. To think of it now almost made him ache.

“Yer lucky. I can’t stand school. Don’t the truant people come lookin’ fer ya, though?

”Maybe…but we move so much they couldn’t find us if they tried.”

“Oh. They sent the truant people after us one time when Katie’s arm got broke. Mama made us stay home ‘cause she said the school’d call the child services people on us and we’d get took away.”

Daryl chuckled at that.

“Yer Mama’s scared of child services? Shit, school’s called child services on my Daddy so many times it don’t make no sense. They come out to the house, look me right in my busted up face, and leave. They never did nothin’.”

There was a strange silence after that. It seemed mutual. That was the most Daryl had ever said to a stranger about Daddy’s abuse.

“Hey, boy, can ya draw?” Katie asked.

“Daryl,” he corrected.

“Shut up and quit botherin’ him!” Aileen snapped.

“It’s ok,” Daryl reassured her.

He knelt down to inspect Katie’s stick figures. There were people and what seemed to be dogs or cats. He smiled at her.

“I can draw some. Those are really good,” he said.

He put out the cigarette and went to sit down on the ground near the little girl.

“Mind if I borrow some chalk?”

Katie shook her head. Daryl selected an orange piece of chalk and a white one and set about the business of drawing a cat. After a moment, Aileen sat down next to him. Their knees were touching. She smelled of some kind of perfume, something light and flowery that reminded him of his mother.

“Mama broke Katie’s arm,” Aileen said quietly, not looking at him.

Daryl had figured as much. The yelling from the next room, the purplish-yellow bruise on her face, the dark cloud that had descended on her expression when she talked about her sister’s broken arm. Yeah, he knew.

“She ain’t a bad Mama. She just gets stressed from workin’ so much and Katie don’t know when to shut up…”

Daryl nodded. He had been making excuses like that for both Daddy and Merle for as long as he could remember, so he understood what she meant.

“Where’s yer Daddy?” He asked, trying to reciprocate.

“Colorado. He’s got a whole ‘nother family. A wife and a son. He used to send me money on my birthday, but now he don’t even answer the phone when I call.”

“Oh.”

“Where’s your parents?” Aileen, selecting a piece of red chalk for herself.

“My Mama’s dead. She died in a fire when I was little. My Daddy…well, he ain’t dead.”

They said that only the good died young, so Daryl expected his father would live longer than most.

“Sorry about your Mama.”

Daryl shrugged.

“It’s ok. It happened a long time ago.”

He got the feeling that it wasn’t an appropriate thing to say, but he almost never thought about her anymore. It was as if she hadn’t even been real. Sometimes he thought that maybe she was just some beautiful dream he’d had, like the ones he had when someone was on top of him.

“Ya draw good. Who taught ya?” Aileen said, gesturing to his chalk cat.

“Nobody. I jus’ can.”

A motorcycle pulled into the parking lot. Daryl recognized it. The pleasant feeling from being with Aileen her sister began to fade. Joe was here now and it was back to work. Daryl stood slowly. Aileen and Katie looked at him, puzzled.

“Got somethin’ I gotta do. I’ll see ya later,” he told them.

“Oh. Ok. Bye,” Aileen said, sounding disappointed.

Daryl led Joe silently into the motel room he shared with Merle.

“That brother of yours is in a whole mess of trouble. He owes the MC a lot of money,” Joe told him when the door was closed behind them.

“Figured, the way we kept movin’,” Daryl replied, as he undressed.

Joe sat on the bed watching him.

“Mm, come here and let me get a look at you,” Joe said when Daryl was naked.

Daryl stood between the man’s legs. He didn’t move when calloused hands came to rest on the curves of his hips. He supposed that he didn’t mind Joe as much as his other regulars. Mostly Joe just wanted a warm body to fuck and those were the easiest men to please. That was why it was so easy for Daryl to go away while Joe used his body.

He daydreamed about Mama holding him in her arms and dancing him around the house like she used to after her morning glasses of wine. Sunlight streaming in through the front windows of their old house. It was so vivid that he could almost smell the scent of clean lavender soap and cigarette smoke on her. The face he saw was not the alcohol ravaged one she’d died with, though. It was always the one in the beautiful pictures he’d seen of her in her youth, when her cornflower blue eyes had still sparkled. It made him happy, but it made him ache someplace deep too.

By the time Daryl came back ( _really_ came back and not just the autopilot version of himself), it had grown darker outside and he was lying along among the tangled sheets. Joe was gone and there was cash on the night table. It had been over for a while. He lay for a while staring at the ceiling before heading to the bathroom to clean himself up.

He dressed and went back outside for a smoke. The chalk drawings were still there, but Aileen and her sister were gone. He knocked on their door, but no one answered so he finished his cigarette and went back inside. Merle did not come home that night or the next night. Nor the next night. Nor the night after that.


	8. Pilot Travel Stop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merle doesn't come back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...do I even need to say this chapter is a sad one anymore? Well, it is. It's a bit of a feels trip.

The first couple days that Merle was gone, Daryl wasn’t worried. He’d gone off on benders occasionally before, but usually came back in a day or two when he ran out of money. But when the third and fourth days came and went with no sign of him, Daryl began to worry.

On the fifth day, the phone rang while Daryl was watching tv and eating leftover pizza.

“Hello?” he inquired.

A voice on the other end informed him that he had a call from an inmate at the White Ridge County Jail. A terrible, sick feeling rose in Daryl’s chest, but he accepted the call anyway.

“Darylina, S’Me,” his brother said after a moment.

“MERLE! S’been days!” Daryl cried, happy that he wasn’t hurt or dead.

“In Jail, Darylina. And I ain’t gon’ lie, it ain’t lookin’ good.”

Daryl tried to stop himself from drifting out of reality.

“What the hell happened?!” he asked.

Merle was talking and Daryl tried to make sense of what he was saying. Something about a DUI. Something about grams of crystal. Something about a hearing. Something about bail. Something about a lawyer.

“When ya comin’ back?” he asked stupidly when Merle had stopped speaking.

“Didn’t ya hear what I said, Darylina?! Listen, I’m tryin’ to work some things out, but I don’t know how long it’ll take. So I need ya to do somethin’.”

“Ok.”

Apparently in the bathroom, hidden in a ceiling tile above the bathroom sink, there was a book. It contained important information. Daryl needed to take care of that book. Then he needed to call Daddy and have him pick him up from the motel.

“No,” Daryl said flatly to the last bit.

“What?”

“No, I ain’t goin’ back.”

“Now ain’t the time for this!”

“No.”

“I can’t have ya out there by yerself.”

“No!”

“It’ll be fer just a little while. I’ll come back fer ya as soon as I can.“

“That’s what ya always say!” Daryl cried, feeling angry and sad and on the verge of hysteria.

“Ya call the old man and have him come get ya. I promise I’ll-”

“I DON’T BELIEVE YA!”

“I will.”

“HOW COULD YA LET THIS HAPPEN!”

“I fucked up. I know. I-“

Daryl slammed the phone down. He looked at it, expecting it to ring again. It didn’t. He closed his eyes and willed the hurt and rage to go away. It was too much. He wanted to just go back to watching tv and eating pizza and pretend that conversation had never taken place. It hadn’t even seemed real.

He tried to forget about it, but then he remembered. The book Merle had mentioned.

He went into the bathroom and turned on the light. He climbed up onto the sink and stood as much as he could without bumping his head. He lifted the tile directly above the sink and something small fell down. He ignored it and felt around until his fingers closed over something with a leathery feel.  He pulled it out and climbed down.

Daryl went back into the room and sat down on the bed. The book was black and looked kind of like a bible. He had seen it before, but had never asked Merle about it. There lots of pages of things that Daryl did not understand. He ignored them and pressed on until he found a few pages that he did understand. His regulars. He knew this because there were street names and Initials and he was good at remembering things like that. The phone numbers Daryl knew were likely burners, some scratched out and replaced with new numbers multiple times. There were prices too, different for almost each person.

Daryl wanted to rip the pages out and set them on fire. Instead, he hurled the book at the wall with a shout.

“FUCK!” He screamed to the empty room.

He was screwed! Merle and his drug habit had fucked them both like always. What could Daryl do but what he had been told to do?

After a while, he picked up the phone again. He stood there with his hand poised over the number pad for several minutes. The number was probably disconnected by now, but he figured it was worth a shot anyway. He dialed from memory.

It rang for a long time  but just as he was about to hang up, a gruff voice answered.

“Yeah?”

Daryl was shocked. He supposed he really hadn’t expected an answer. He hadn’t heard his father’s voice in almost 2 years and despite everything that had happened, it suddenly occurred to him how much he had missed him. Daryl’s heart swelled in his chest.

“Yeah?” his father inquired again, more insistent.

“Hi, Daddy,” Daryl said softly.

There was silence on the other end for a moment.

“Daryl…That you, boy?”

“Yeah. S’me, Daddy.”

More silence.

“Daryl…Son, where ya at? I been lookin’ all over for ya!”

That was hard to believe. When Daddy hadn’t been beating him he had been ignoring him. He was surprised the old man even noticed he was gone.

“I’m with Merle,” Daryl replied.

“ _Merle_ ,” Will scoffed, “Ya put that asshole on the phone so I can give’em a piece of my goddamn mind.”

“He ain’t here.”

“Hmph, of course he ain’t…where ya’ll at?”

“How’s things at home?” Daryl asked, dodging the question again.

 “Same’s always. Went up and saw yer Uncle Jess last week. What about ya and Merle? Ya’ll alright?”

It was the first time Daryl could remember his father ever inquiring after his wellbeing. He could actually hear the worry in his voice. Daryl wanted to tell him the truth, but he knew there was no way he could. How could he tell him that his eldest son had gone and gotten himself locked up again and his youngest son was alone and debating continuing to sell himself instead of coming home?

Daryl closed his eyes as he felt the burning of tears there. He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat.

“We’re alright,” he replied quietly.

 “Ya don’t sound alright. I can hear it in yer voice. Merle treatin’ ya ok?”

Daryl had to press his hand against the mouthpiece of the phone so his father wouldn’t hear the sob that escaped.

“Ya still there, boy?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s gone, ain’t he? He done up and left ya.”

There was no mocking in the tone, not like Daryl expected. That he could take because he was used to it. No, it was the concern in Will’s voice that broke him. The tears finally fell.

“Tell me where ya at. I’ll come get ya.”

“M’alright,” Daryl insisted, but his voice cracked.

“Son…I never meant to hurt ya like I did. Things got outta hand and that was all my fault. But I want ya to come on home now.”

Daryl covered the receiver again and wept. It felt good to hear his father’s voice, and it was hard not to just give in. God, did he want to go home! He wanted to sleep in his own bed. He wanted to sit in the back corner desk of his homeroom class back at Cold Creek middle. He wanted to play in the woods that he knew like the back of his hand. He wanted to go hunting with Daddy and Uncle Jess. But he knew in his heart that he couldn’t go back even though he desperately longed to. He was changed.

 “I gotta go, Daddy,” Daryl whispered.

“What? Son, wait. I-“

Daryl placed the phone gently back into its cradle and sank down on the floor, sobbing. He felt so sorry for himself. He cried until he had no more tears left then he went back into the bathroom.

He looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes were red and puffy and his cheeks stained with tears.

“Yer disgustin’ and weak,” he said contemptuously to his reflection.

He said it again, louder. Then again, louder still. Then he shouted it again and again until he felt nothing. He made a decision.

There would be no more whining. No more crying. No more wishing and hoping and wanting. He had to focus on the facts now. Merle was in jail and he wasn’t getting out anytime soon. No one was coming for him and he had to take care of himself now. The weekly motel rent was due tomorrow. He figured they wouldn’t ask too many questions as long as he kept paying, so he needed to make some money. And he knew how to make money if nothing else.

Pilot Travel Stop was only a mile from the motel. Since they’d moved to Ridgeview Motel, Merle had taken him there a few times. It wasn’t much different than Al’s, so he could work it just the same.

Daryl took a breath and turned on the sink to wash his face when he noticed it. A small baggie just near the sink stopper. He picked it up and examined it. He would recognize what it was anywhere. Crystal. He didn’t know if it constituted a little or a lot. His first instinct was to flush it, but for some reason he changed his mind. He pocketed it instead.

He drank the last can of beer, grabbed a pack of condoms from the night table, and headed out.

Pilot was pretty busy this time of day. Daryl noticed a couple other people working the lot, a long-haired boy not much older than himself and a woman much older than them both, but he got his first trick right away.

He was an older guy, probably around Daryl’s father’s age, and talkative as hell. Apparently, he was from Pennsylvania, and he’d been out on the road for 2 months, leaving behind a wife and a daughter. He liked Daryl’s eyes and said he had a great body. He wanted to know how old he was, to which Daryl replied with a smile:

“How old ya want me to be?”

  1. Or 16. The man thought he looked like he could be 16. Sure, he’d be 16 then. Why the fuck not?



The man told Daryl how perfect he looked with his mouth full of cock. He wanted to know if Daryl liked it when he touched him. He told him that he’d known a slut like him would. He wanted to know if Daryl wanted his cock inside him. He wanted to know how _bad_ Daryl wanted his cock inside him. Daryl was adept at responding to these prompts on autopilot.

When it ended, he did his clean up routine, and then it was rinse and repeat. By the fourth trick, he felt the familiar exhaustion creeping in.

 _Not now,_ he thought, _Yer only a few in._

He went into the bathroom and the long-haired boy he’d seen earlier was in there standing at the bank of sinks. He looked up when Daryl came in and smiled.

“Hey!” he said.

“Hey,” Daryl replied.

He stood there saying nothing for too long before going into one of the stalls. He sat down on the closed toilet and took out the baggie of crystal. He looked at it carefully. He knew that he could crush it up and snort it. Merle did that sometimes when he didn’t have a pipe handy. But he didn’t know how much of it he was supposed to do. He stared at it a long time, debating.

In the end, he put the baggie back into his pocket and left the stall. The long-haired boy was still there. He was applying make-up to a bruise near his left eye. Daryl went to the sink one away from him and splashed cold water on his face, sighing heavily.

“Long day?” The boy asked.

That was an understatement.

“No worse than any other. Looks like it was better than yers, though. Somebody got ya good.”

The boy chuckled.

”I still got paid, though, and that’s what matters.”

Daryl looked at him strangely.

“Ain’t never seen nobody laugh about gettin’ punched in the face before.”

“If you knew how much money I stole from him, you’d be laughing too.”

“Nice.”

“Probably not, but I like to think of myself as an agent of karma. I’m Paul, by the way. People call me Jesus, though, ‘cause of the-“

“Hair. I got that.”

The boy moved closer and held out a hand. Daryl wiped his wet hand on his jeans and accepted. It was the first time he’d gotten to look at his face full on. Despite the bruise and the slight swelling, he was…beautiful. Daryl was rendered temporarily speechless. A smile spread across Paul’s lips.

“Do you have a name or are you just going to stand there holding my hand?” he asked.

Daryl withdrew his hand in embarrassment.

“Daryl.”

Maybe it was the easy way he smiled or the good-natured tone of his voice or something else, but Daryl found himself liking this stranger. It didn’t hurt that he was attractive either. Daryl tried not to stare too long, but it was hard. He wasn’t used to being affected by people like this.

“Nice to meet you, Daryl. You work Pilot often? I haven’t seen you here before.”

“I just started not too long ago. Usually do the wee hours.”

“Wee hours? By yourself?”

“No…”

“You have…somebody then?”

_A pimp. He wanted to say a pimp._

“Used to. Not no more.”

“Oh. Well, aside from the occasional asshole, flying solo isn’t so bad. And after a while you get to know the people who work the lot. We try to look out for each other. I’m here most days around the same time.”

Daryl nodded to this. He knew that his attempts to not stare were just as awkward as staring. He needed to get out of here.

“Well, I guess I’ll see ya around then.”

Paul smiled and Daryl felt his face get warm.

“Yep. See you around. Daryl.”

Daryl went back to walking the lot. He was able to get through a few more tricks before he was too sore and exhausted to continue, having almost fallen asleep during the last one. He had enough to pay the weekly motel rate anyway.

As he got ready to leave, he found himself searching the lot for the boy called Paul. He didn’t see him, though. Oh well. He supposed he’d see him tomorrow or maybe the day after.

It was dark out now and the walk back to Ridgeview was not fun. When he got back, he half expected to see Merle’s truck in the parking lot outside their room. Of course, it wasn’t and he had to force down the sadness that rose in him.

In the room, he turned on the lights and the TV. The Marvelous Martins wouldn’t be on for a couple hours, but he couldn’t bear the silence. He took the cash he’d made out of his pockets along with the baggie of crystal and laid it all out on the night stand.

He counted the money into 3 stacks. The first one was the weekly room rate. He’d take that to the motel office in the morning. The second stack was what he estimated he’d need for food, condoms, and smokes for a while. And the third, smaller, stack…

At first he thought Alaska, but he realized he’d only settled on that to begin with because he figured it was somewhere Merle would like to go. And now Merle was locked up and couldn’t come with him anyway. So he thought maybe California. Yes, California. It seemed like such a nice place on TV. It was always sunny there and all the people were good looking and a lot of his favorite shows were made there.

California.

Daryl laid down on the bed with the small stack of money pressed to his chest. He concocted a fantasy in which he would move to California and he’d become an actor and live in a nice big house near the beach. He wondered if Paul would like California. Maybe Daryl could pluck up the courage to ask him tomorrow, but probably not.

He knew it was stupid, but he had to believe that there was more than…whatever this was. Maybe he would never get it, but the least he could do was try.

That night he fell asleep fully clothed with the “California” money in his hand and dreamt of a boy with long brown hair. He missed The Marvelous Martins, but that was ok. The rerun would come on the next night.


End file.
